Rogozin: Russia starts work on heavy missile for building station on Moon

Russian President Vladimir Putuin and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin watch the first launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, April 2016.

Olesya Kurpyaeva / RG

New rocket will make it possible to create research station on Moon someday

Russia is about to launch a project for building a new super-heavy space rocket that will make it possible to create a research station on the Moon someday, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said while addressing an audience at the space rocket corporation Energia.

"On instructions from the president, which is being finalized technically, we are launching a super-heavy space rocket project, with quite different payload capabilities. It will pave the way for implementing the idea of a research station on the Moon, visitable and inhabitable," he said on Nov. 28.

The project for creating a super-heavy class rocket was approved in the autumn of 2014, but in the spring of 2015 the head of the space rocket corporation Roscosmos Igor Komarov said the work on a new rocket had to be postponed. The project was absent from the federal space program for 2016-2025 adopted last spring. At the same time there are plans for creating a Feniks rocket, which is seen as the first stage of a future super-heavy rocket.

Earlier, Rogozin said that Russia at the moment had no space vehicles that might require a super-heavy rocket, but the corresponding tasks may emerge once it has been developed.